Statistics
by nolifeinabox
Summary: Midgar is a big city, and it's growing everyday. People go missing all the time. The only thing to do is try to move forward. Companion piece to Qualitative Data.


The whole room shakes with the impact of the landlords back against his office wall.

"Where are Lavey and Reno? Where the fuck are my family you piece of shit!?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know? Folks stop paying rent they have to go, ain't my job to worry about where."

"That's bullshit! I been sending you checks every month! An' you been fucking cashing 'em."

"Rent went up. 'Bout six months ago. That bitch of yours was paying the difference 'till she disappeared. I let the damn kid stay till the end of that month, but I ain't running a charity. Other folks who could pay wanted the place."

"My rent went up, my wife disappeared, you threw my kid out on the street and you didn't think to fucking phone me first?"

"Not. My. Problem."

"When?"

"Musta been four months back now." The breath goes out of Alvin then, and he drags the landlord down with him as his knees hit the ground. Four months. He'll never find them. His head is whirling with statistics, news clippings, the missing posters that cover the slums, layered on top of each other. Tens of thousands of people move between sectors every day.

He stands again. The landlord stays on the floor, like he thinks maybe if he doesn't move Alvin will forget about him. He kicks the mans teeth in and brings a boot down hard on his right hand. The sniveling and snapping bone don't make him feel any better, but there's a principle to be learned here.

"They ain't been here for four months, but you've still been taking my money. I'll be taking that back now."

-oOo-

He gives the apples he had splurged on for his own son to the family now living where his had. No one in under Two can afford fresh produce often, and they have an eight year old kid too.

He calls their friends, Lavey's family, his family. Nothing. They had hoped that he knew where she was.

He goes to Reno's school; confirms that four months back his attendance started getting shoddy, and two weeks after that, they stopped seeing him altogether. The school says they'd called and called the apartment, but no one ever answered. They'd assumed the family had moved.

He goes to the lawkeepers. They tell him, tiredly, that you almost never find anyone after 72 hours. He knows this. He gives them the only pictures he has anyway.

They never call.

Two months later he's on shift again, headed back to sea on the freight ships that transport Shinra goods the planet over. It will be another six months before he sets foot in the city.

He has a lot more money to spend now. He spends most of it chasing the warm numbness at the bottom of bottles, and women with bright blue eyes. What he doesn't need for himself, he donates. Shelters, food lines, children's rescues, community clinics. He hopes somewhere, somehow it's getting to them.

If either of them are even still alive.

-oOo-

A year later, and he doesn't drink quite as much, but he still chases skirts, and he thinks more. He doesn't bother looking anymore when he's back in the city. His money goes the same places. It'll do someone else some good.

As the head engineer on his ship, folks depend on him now, whether they know it or not. He drinks less because he has no plans to lose a ship and a crew on his watch. He won't be responsible for making any widows, or orphans, and besides he likes his crew, especially his apprentice. Earnest kid, about twenty two, with dark skin and serious eyes, and a mess of black curls he keeps beneath a grease stained bandana. Kid learns faster than anyone Alvin has ever worked with, and if he didn't know better he'd swear the engines talk to him. Goes by Kale.

"Hey Alvin, you coming up to mess?"

"No, I'll get something later. Engine Four is making that noise again, I want to check it out."

"I'll bring some dinner down for you then."

He never lets Alvin eat alone, and Alvin appreciates it. When they're working, he asks good questions about everything. When they aren't working, they play cards and Alvin loses. Sometimes on purpose, but it's rare. Kale tells him about the money he's saving to get his fiance a real ring, about the plans she's making for the ceremony, and the little girl coming in a few months. They'd like to have two or three kids, but times are hard. Alvin assures him that one is plenty, and he can't think of a better father.

He doesn't have any pictures to show, but he has plenty of stories to tell. Mostly about the wildly inappropriate pets his son was always trying to keep.

He also tells him to keep close tabs. On everything. Even when he's away.

One day Kale shows up in the engine rooms crying, with a picture of his wife and the newborn baby on his phone. Alvin can't tell if the tears are happiness at seeing them, or frustration that he couldn't be there. Probably both.

"We named her Alice."

Alvin spends the next two solstices in Junon, with Kale, Josie and Alice. Unknown to them, he checks up on their landlord.

-oOo-

When he wakes, the ship is tilted, violently. He staggers into the hall with the others who'd been sent to rest. The lights go out.

Straining metal, shouting, flashes and sparks in the darkness, icy water rushing through the corridor, hands on his arms pulling him, somewhere.

The engine room is already flooded. They find none of the crew who had been working there, and there's no time.

He should have been there. It echoes strangely in his head, drowning out the real-world cacophony around him. The faces of crew mates present and presumed lost flash, and mix with those of his family. He should have been in the engine room. He should have been at home. If he had paid closer attention, he could have stopped it. If he'd been there...

Kale is shaking him, gesturing to where the others are trying to manually unhitch the lifeboats. The angle is wrong and the automatics went out with the engine.

He's here now though. He looks at Kale and the others working frantically, thinks of Josie arranging flowers in the kitchen, and Alice's tottering steps between her parents, the tree, the couch, himself. He's here now, and the kid is going to make it back.

One boat breaks free while they're working on it, the ship tipped too far and the supports gave. There isn't enough room in the remaining boat for everyone, but it gives him an idea.

They hit the water with a force that sends them reeling, and it's a scramble to swim to the boat before the waves take it too far away. The wind is hard and the waves come in sharp, four foot high bursts. But he's a strong swimmer, he makes it to the boat and starts pulling the others in.

Two of them aren't going to make it. Kale isn't going to be one of them. He drags the kid in as soon as he can reach him, and hops back over the side to reach more stragglers. The waves hit like concrete, and his grip on the side is slick.

"Don't worry" He says to his friends frantically pulling hands. "I've got my life-vest. I'll stay with the boat. When they find you, they'll find me." He smiles reassuringly, and for a heartbeat, he almost believes himself.

Then another wave hits.


End file.
